Richard Lorenz

Born in Vienna on April 13, 1863, Richard Lorenz was an Austrian chemist who first studied medicine before turning fully to chemistry. He continued his studies in Vienna and Jena, earned his doctorate in 1888 with work on the valence of boron, and later qualified in physical chemistry at Göttingen.

Lorenz became especially known for his research in electrochemistry, above all for studying molten salts. He taught at the Eidgenössische Polytechnikum in Zurich, where he was appointed professor of electrochemistry, and later moved to Frankfurt, where he served as professor of physical chemistry after the university was founded there in 1914.

Alongside a large body of scientific papers, he also edited Zeitschrift für anorganische Chemie. He died in Frankfurt am Main on June 23, 1929, and is remembered for careful experimental work that helped establish the electrochemistry of fused salts as a serious field of study.